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+---- Thread: Stanford students want Western Civilization? (/thread-776103.html)
Stanford students want Western Civilization? - bullet - 03-30-2016 09:24 PM
http://nypost.com/2016/03/29/the-drive-to-put-western-civ-back-in-the-college-curriculum/
....
The editorial board of The Stanford Review has circulated a petition for a mandatory course on “the politics, history, philosophy, and culture of the Western world.” More than 370 students signed the petition, qualifying it to be voted on by the entire student body in April.
Nearby UC Berkeley offers courses on Western civilization, and even science-oriented Cal Tech does, too. But at Stanford, outside of a boutique liberal-arts program, no course like this is offered at all. Stanford’s curriculum used to have more spine.
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In 1964, 15 of the 50 premier universities in America — including Stanford — required students to take a survey of Western civilization. All 50 offered the course, and nearly all of them (41) offered it as a way to satisfy some requirement.
But in the 1980s, minority students and faculty at Stanford asserted that requiring students to take the Western civ survey was implicitly racist. Jesse Jackson marched with an army of protesters chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, Western culture’s got to go.”
In 1988, away it went. Stanford then began requiring a course on a non-Western culture. By 2010, none of the 50 top universities required Western civilization, and 34 didn’t even offer the course.
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If they succeed, Stanford students will have written a new chapter in Western civilization for future students to study.
RE: Stanford students want Western Civilization? - bullet - 03-30-2016 09:26 PM
Speaking of Stanford, our HS principal (of a very good private HS) said of Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Yale and Princeton-fugetaboutit.
15 years ago Stanford had 15,000 applications for 1500 slots. Now its 150,000 for those 1500 slots. Its like winning the lottery.